


Sorrow's Invocation

by Onus_Probandi



Category: Fate/Grand Order, 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game)
Genre: AU, Holy Grail War (Fate), Homunculus Albedo (Genshin Impact), I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Like Fate Grand Order, M/M, Master/Servant, Please Don't Hate Me, also a zhongli come home post, but not weird, fate au, i am very high while writing this, i write these while sleep deprived, non brothers diluc/kaeya au, self challenge, theres gonna be sex and gore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:28:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27827527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onus_Probandi/pseuds/Onus_Probandi
Summary: When history Professor Zhongli forcefully injects himself into the 9th Holy Grail War due to his botched summoning of a Ruler, he is thrust into the magical world where his life is on the line for the ultimate prize: any wish to be granted by the Holy Grail.---Or: Zhongli fucks up and summons Tartaglia by accident.
Relationships: Albedo/Kong | Aether (Genshin Impact), Jean/Lisa (Genshin Impact), Tartaglia | Childe/Zhongli (Genshin Impact)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 174





	1. The Summoner

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! im very excited that youre reading this with me!! please leave a comment or kudos and let me know what you think at @momancity on twitter!

The summoning is flawed from the very start, but Zhongli, aspiring Master, doesn’t quite know where. Mayhaps the catalysts for a Ruler are so far beyond the catalysts for a normal servant or perhaps he so greatly overstepped his bounds that the Grail seeks to either punish or reward him for his insolence to the laws of the Holy War. 

Maybe he’s just two steps too far to the right. Magic is apparently finicky, but what does he know?

Still, no matter how bold he is, he is punished for his affront when his bedroom fills with water, seeping from the lights, crevasses, and finery. His home submerges underneath the waves, the depths dark, cold and terrifying. A whale's song haunts him from underneath the saltwater as he cries out, air escaping his lungs and filling with lacrima. 

He fades, trapped under the crush of magic, the last of his air seeping from his lips.

* * *

Tartaglia grabs his newest Master by the collar and pulls him from the depths of memory back to the realm of the living.


	2. Chapter 2

He’s researched it for years, the Holy Grail War, Masters and Servants. A world of magic hidden alongside his own so seamlessly...how many disasters had been the cause of this Great Grail and humanity’s gluttony? Societies lost to history and the ruins of magic. 

Zhongli is a normal history professor with an obsession. To find this magic world one must be born into it. But magic is a skill and skills can be learned by anyone. 

This is how damn near middle aged Zhongli ends up in the 9th Holy Grail War. in the middle of an age old conflict, he is but a speck, as insignificant as he has no old blood connections to the world of magic but that makes him astronomically significant.

At least to the twins who appear magically (ironic) at his door mere seconds after being waterboarded by his own servant.

Lumine and Aether take one look at the soggy mess that is his office, scattered with years of priceless research, stones and gems that hum with weak magic power and in the center of his upturned desk, the half-dead man of all things. Aether massages his temples internally. If he’s dead this just complicates things. If he’s alive this just...fucking hell.

“He must still be alive. If not we just wasted the drive over.” Lumine hums to herself more than anything, stepping over a squishy pile of paper. “Hello~? Are you ok over ther-”

“Take another step and it's your head, mage.” The Servant steps from the shadows, spear pointed at Lumine’s jugular. She takes two steps back, arming herself with a bolt of light, eyes narrow. 

“Well.” Aether sighs, grasping her arm and pushing it down in a forced passive display. “At least we know the answer to two of our biggest questions.” He gestures to the Servant, who hasn’t relinquished an inch, expression unreadable under his mask and aura emanating malice. “We haven’t come to kill your Master. We are the overseers of this Holy Grail War. You’ve both made quite an unusual splash in the world of magic and this Holy War.”

Zhongli coughs, water spilling from his lips as he rises shakily to his feet.

“...Poor choice of words, Aether,” Lumine says, watching as finally, the Servant stows his weapon in the nether, stepping between his Master and the Overseers. Protective.

From his position nearly three feet below his Servant, Zhongli awes, eyes aglow with sheer joy and researchers delight. For years, he’s studied the Holy Grail War and its Servants birthed from the Grail itself all based on a hunch. He’s toiled, faced embarrassment and now the fruits of his labor stood before him.

Fruits of his own magic. He closes around the small pulse of cool earth and allows his fingers to curl into a fist.

For what it seems, at least his Servant doesn’t want to kill him yet, which he has read has happened before. “You are...Ruler?”

His Servant makes an inhumane sound that could possibly be a snort distorted by his mask. 

The twins eye each other. They say nothing aloud but Zhongli can feel the sudden rush of worry from here.

\----

The Homunculus gazes at a setting sky, the residual heat from the impromptu summoning warm in his chest. Otherwise, it’s cold, freezing actually in this fortress built centuries ago to keep invaders out. 

Now, it serves to keep him in.

“Lord Albedo.”

Jean is a respectable woman, she has given him shelter when he would have been torn bit by bit by any of the other Masters to find the Grail he possesses. Her family heritage depended on honor and their status as birthing many heroes deep inside his will. She would plot and wait, brilliant woman she is, win the War properly.

And lop off his head.

“It is quite cold, would you like to...ahem... retire for the night?” He turns to gaze at her and notices she has turned away in autonomous respect.

Nudity doesn’t bother him -- why should it? He has nothing to offer down there anyways -- but sometimes he forgets that it bothers the humans. Very well, he’ll put on the dressings and be a good little Grail.

The wind howls.

His fate is sealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew this took a bit, but the story is shaping up how i want it to. yell at me in the comments or on twitter! @momancity


End file.
